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Tea As Soma pt. 1

Tea as Soma

by Frederick R. Dannaway - Bottle Gourd Studio 4-18-09

Dedicated to the scholarship of Joseph Needham and Michel Strickmann.

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Bodhidharma with tea plant.

Visionary Herbalism and Immortality

Miraculous
and holy plants can be traced to the heart of many ancient religions and
cultures. The earliest written saga, the Epic of Gilgamesh, climaxes with a
frantic, thwarted attempt to secure a plant that will conquer death. The
mysterious brews of the ancients Greeks such as the kykeon of Eleusis, or
the moly of Homeric myths wove
visionary narratives of man’s often precarious role in nature around
supernatural plants. The ritual haoma
of the Indo-Iranians or Soma of the
Vedas participates in the same quests that motivated Chinese emperors to
dispatch envoys to Japan
in search for the plant of immortality. Daoist and Vedic alchemists sought
powerful herbs and fungi from remote regions for their elixirs. The use of
magic, entheogenic, or otherwise psychoactive plants can thus be said to be at
the core of many mystery traditions from Greece
to India.

Beyond the
“psycho-sexual-drug-yoga” that was so common in the various Tantric sects and
shamans of Asia was the slightly anomalous idea, (perhaps
imported via nomadic Indo-European tribes) of a plant that was what
Joseph Needham described as a “passport to heaven.”To fully understand the context some concepts
must be introduced that bring the discussion far afield. Alchemy, a blend of
science and art, poses difficult questions in even in the simplest matters and
no single definition can properly suffice as to what the goals, methods and
cosmological impact consisted. For example, when cupellation was well known, in
what way was “alchemical gold” actually understood in its own specific context,
or in different specific contexts? (see the works of Joseph Needham
particularly volume 5 as cited below). The question is "relatable" here because
alchemical elixirs and powders themselves where thought to possibly produce
immortality. But can the various terms scholars loosely translate as
“immortality” really be defined with any certainty in any given environment? Is
it a state of enlightenment, achievement of the “Dao” a state of mind or was it
understood, by adepts, as literal everlasting life? Then again, is that
everlasting life understood in a corporeal sense or more in line with the
modern Christian notions of a heaven after death? The hopelessly muddled
semantics of imported ideas and linguistic expressions is by no means constant
moving through the ancient world and underneath the various cultural veneers
there is little consensus. It may be
these subtleties that are the root of many sectarian and doctrinal discords.

Prior to
Persian influences in later passages, the Old Testament is startling in its
lack of conception of an afterlife beyond vague notions of Sheol. There is neither
promise of heaven nor threat of hell. Covenants are contracted with the promise
of descendants and material goods. The Christian notion of immortality is
non-corporeal and decidedly deferred until after death, except for such Old
Testament exceptions of Elijah and Enoch. The notions of Greek immortality is
bound up with hero cults and mystery traditions that return to magical plants,
elixirs or nectars of the earth such as the ambrosia which is synonymous with
the Sanskrit Amrita, literally
“without death.” But it is still unclear how the adepts understood these
concepts in any real sense. Would “without death” imply the same to a priest in
Greece as it
would to an alchemist in India
or nomadic shaman in Asia? Amrita follows an ancient heritage of alchemical arts and magical
herbs back to the Soma plant itself,
but as the adepts passed away in physical form the “deathlessness” must have be
seen as spiritual.Beyond this, particularly in the Indian and Asian contexts, “immortality” may have been achieved by cognizing
the “mind-only” basis of existence which neither begins nor ends. Immortality,
enlightenment and nirvana reconcile in the ineffable profundity of such a
doctrine. Bodhidharma’s few surviving
works while profound in pointing to the ultimate “emptiness” doesn’t deny such
things as demons nor the punishments of many hells, which may have crept into
Buddhism through Persian influences as well.Some of have suggested, including Chinese contemorary with him, that Bodhidharma himself may have been Persian.

Defining
“immortality” for anyone sect or school would be daunting so there is little
hope for a broad consensus on the idea as it evolved. There would be a profane
understanding of the myths and alchemical lore despite adepts cautioning
profusely to avoid literal interpretations. This would tend to an understanding
of the term immortality in terms of eternal youth or simply never dying. Such
notions would be complicated by intense ascetic practices that are still practiced
to this day. These include burying oneself alive in extreme sensory deprivation
situations for prolonged periods of time that would seem as if a person was
suddenly “born again” or “raised from the dead.” Then there is a quasi-physical
immortality that is non-corporeal or trans-corporeal. Examples blend with
legends in cases of sudden death from an elixir or tonic, or even the gradual
wasting away such as from mercury-laced potions, which were often seen by some
as confirmation of progress or eminent success. Immortality can be seen, even
briefly, to be rather more complicated than the term first appears.

The adepts
of all alchemical traditions fairly plead with their readers that the
ingredients and techniques listed are not to be understood literally or in a
mundane sense. This suggests a more “spiritual” nature to the understanding of
the concept, with a nod towards "convenient designations," that are fraught with
the theological and cultural taints. What was the goal of the wise, and better yet, what how is this goal of
immortality to be understood as it became a relatively cohesive system that
arose from indigenous shamanism, metallurgical (proto-alchemical) guilds and
proto-Tantra to various schools of esoteric Buddhism and Daoism? Core themes
are retained through the contact with Islamic and eventually European Christian
mystics, all of whom cloak alchemical metaphors in the garments of their own
faiths. The sorting out of the primary influence is difficult and will hopefully be fleshed out in another paper.

One
hypothesis that is slowly gaining academic acceptance is that visionary plants
are at the root of much of these myths. The research of enthnobotanists and
ethnomycologists such as Carl Ruck and Gordon Wasson systematically explored
the ritual plant use of various mystery traditions. There most persuasive
arguments unlock long disputed historical puzzles as the identification of
various magical plants found in the myths and scriptures of Greece,
Persia and India.
The identification of the active ingredient in the kykeon that was so profoundly praised by all initiates and
enshrined in the myths reveals the poetic life-giving grain with its secret
psychedelic infection of ergot. The Vedic Soma,
fought for by gods and exclusively used by the Brahmin caste, was suggested to
be the Amanita muscaria mushroom that
invokes a visionary state.

The
implications are profound in terms of philosophy and cosmology if the secrets
of the ancients were the result of ingesting “psychoactive” plants. Their
experiences of entities and other worlds, of ecstasy and terror, would
literally make these plants or mushrooms, magic. The concept of tasting of the
fruit of immortality, understood in the sense of having traveled like the
shaman into the otherworld, is one of participating in the realm of the gods
and by doing so the adept is transformed. Reality is split apart to reveal an
occult world just below the surface populated by shape-shifting beings from
magical landscapes. These concepts simply become more subtle in the profound
grasp of dhyana/chan/s’on/zen (or the Daoist “sitting in oblivion”
zuowang) of adepts from India,
China, Korea
and Japan
respectively. Tea is not hallucinogenic, but it is certainly psychoactive with
numerous medicinal and physiological properties producing energies and
sensations far beyond what a reductionist study of the chemicals and alkaloids
could reveal. We lack the vocabulary for substances that instantly give peace,
inspire poetry or transport to a dreamy landscape with a single sip.

The
candidates for the Soma plant are
many, from the mentioned species of mushroom to other more overtly
hallucinogenic varieties containing psilocybin. Other candidates include
species of Lotus, Cannabis sativa,
ergot, Lagochilus inebrians, as well
as morning glory seeds (for their LSA alkaloids that are similar to LSD). Perhaps
the three prominent candidates for Soma/Haoma
would be the mentioned toadstool mushroom Amanita muscaria, the Syrian Rue or Peganum harmala, and Ephedra
sp. because the latter is still used by some Iranians as haoma. Other persuasive cases have been
made that Soma was electrum, gold itself, a supernatural plant of mythology, or
a plant that has gone extinct. Other frontrunners include water, honey, mead or
alcohol of some kind as well as innumerable species of herbs and plants.

Having been
under the influences of rapid infusions of some 1950’s Red Mark Yin-Ji Puerh I feel justified in suggesting tea or Camellia sinensis as a possible
candidate or substitute for Soma.With
tiny orbs of qi coursing through my
system after each sip I see a vision of the lineage of patriarchs of Esoteric
Buddhism and thangkas ofblue Bodhisattvas holding cups of
amrita in their palm. Tea may not be the original soma, but the reverence, ritual and perhaps the shape into which it
is pressed (especially in Tibet),
make it a serious candidate as a soma-substitute
or amrita.

Here the medicine Buddha sits
upon what looks like an Amanita muscaria shaped throne. Not the “gills” of a
mushroom behind him as well. Perhaps he is holding a cup of tea there.

Tibetan Puerh Tea compressed
into a mushroom shape

Tea Myths, or The Grand Plant of the Southern Regions

The
discovery of the tea plant is the subject of many telling myths describing a
magical origin associated with a legendary mystical figure. There are many
variants, but the most popular center upon the divine emperor Shennong around
2700 BC, one of the Three August Ones, (note first Empress Nu wa, created human
beings, second Fu Xi the bringer of Trigrams, third civilization). Known
sometimes as the Divine Husbandman, the Red Emperor, Yan Di or the Divine
Farmer he brought a balanced civilization. One of his most beneficent feats was
to systematically classify the plants into categories as to their medicinal,
edible or toxic qualities when he observed the people eating poisonous herbs. He
was said to tea leaves, or as the book of medicine, the Shen Nong Ben Chao states "Shen Nong tasted hundreds of herbs,
he encountered seventy two poisons daily, he used tea as antidote." (note In
Chinese legend, Shen Nong died in Tea Hill (Cha Lin) county
of Hunan province.) As a “God of
Medicine” his skill in herbal pharmacology were divinely inspired and he is
said to have put tea leaves in hot water inside an urn which brought him
pleasure and a sense of purification. (other legends have wind blowing water on
tea leaves and thus the infusion was accidental, perhaps it was his sanitary
concerns which led him to boil water to make it safe for consumption, the
addition of herbs, etc. are a logical progression, legend One day, on a trip to
a distant region, he and his army stopped to rest. A servant began boiling
water for him to drink, and a dead leaf from the wild tea bush fell into the
water. It turned a brownish color, but it was unnoticed and presented to the
emperor anyway. The emperor drank it and found it very refreshing, and cha
(tea) was born.).

Some
traditions have the Buddha or the Buddhist Patriarch Bodhidharma involved in
the origin of tea. Their cultivation of the awakened mind was perpetual, though
their bodies would become weary from constant, sleepless mediation sessions.
Bodhidharma, and less frequently Buddha, is said to have removed the eyelids to
remain awake and the discarded tea lids on the earth grew into tea plants. Bodhidharma
is something of an immortal as well, and he was witnessed after his death
traveling back to India
with one sandal tied to his staff. An exhumation of his grave proved empty
expect for the other sandal. Bodhidharma
is also linked with the origins martial arts of Gong-Fu, which is also linked
with the qi building Chinese tea art
(gong-fu cha) that manifests in
palpable energy sensations. Bodhidharma’s martial arts, though legendary, may
actually have legitimate basis in Kalarippayattu, the Indian martial arts which
deals in pressure points. The southern school, the Siddha Vaidya, recognize 108
of these points or marmas. (note on dates to Rig veda and other 108 notes
securing Indian origin.) The number 108 seems strongly Indian in flavor, as the
footnotes demonstrate further examples, and the veneration in China
for this number likely arrived with Buddhism. Most Chinese tea literature will
explain away the reverence for the number as indicating the perfect lifespan of
108 years. A crucial scripture to Chinese, Tibetan and Japanese “mind-only”
Mahayana Buddhism is the Lankavatara Sutra which emphasizes the 108 steps
linking to the 108 prayer beads zen priests wear around their wastes or to 108
beads of the Buddhist rosaries in all traditions. Therefore 108 can be seen to
be a very significantly Indian number from their astronomy to yogic/martial
postures to metaphysical “steps” and beyond. In this context, note that the
Chinese character for tea adds up to 108:

The two strokes
on top add to 20, the bottom stroke adds to 88=108.

These myths are significant as
Bodhidharma is the 28th Patriarch in an esoteric form of Buddhism
that was steeped in Indian forms of meditation, dhyana and is said to have brought this type of Buddhism to China.
Ch’an, or zen in Japanese, must be seen to be a particular sect, perhaps as
some suggest a reform movement, in a complex of Esoteric Mahayana Buddhism. It
is outside scriptures, texts or verbal artifice and yet there is a clear
esoteric lineage of transmission, “mind to mind”. Ch’an might be seen to be the highest form or fiercest doctrinal
expression of Mahayana Buddhism that transcends all other ritual embellisments,
or what are deemed in a mundane sense as “tantric,” as something of frivolous
preliminaries at best or otherwise as dangerous distractions.

The Tibetan
Vajrayana holds the Dzogchen (Dzog-pa Chen-po) teachings of "intrinsic
or primordial awareness" as the highest of its “Inner Tantras.” Because of
its affinity with Chinese ch’an,
Dzogchen, the teacher, was considered a heretic, with a result of some
practicing his teachings in secret, such as the 5th Dalai Lama. The
language and spirit of Dzogchen, ch’an and zen have led to some to label Dzogchen
Tibetan zen, which despite some
objections is quite justified. Tibetan theologians point to the spontaneous
nature of the “enlightenment” compared to the gradual path of the monastery in
defending the uniqueness of this doctrine. There are subtleties, and it serves
no purpose to paint them as identical, and yet they both express the
penultimate expression of intuited “truths” in stark accord. But there was such
a doctrinal split within ch’an Buddhism
based on this same controversy of “sudden verses gradual” enlightenment, with
the former being the earliest form traced back to Bodhidharma and back through
the Patriarchs to the Buddha.

A doctrine
of sudden enlightenment and context of “pure mind,” again using expedient
terms, are expressed in various doctrines that in some sense can be traced to
Bodhidharma whose eyebrows legendarily produced tea bushes. Indeed, this is why
most representations have him portrayed with huge, bulging eyes. The
stimulating and yet calming effects of tea became an essential part of
meditation that participated in the ancient myths of magical plants perhaps
replacing more hallucinogenic or toxic alchemical “soma” or “amrita” substitutes.
Tea was even “pressed” or rolled as soma is
linguistically linked with “to press.” The psychoactive effects of tea combined
with an ascetic diet and rigorous meditation would certainly affect the mind,
possibly producing a state of transcendent awareness/bliss/enlightenment,
something like the Japanese satori
that culminated into a profound insight that synchronized the mundane thought
process with the Buddha-mind.

A tea roller from ShaanxiProvince used to grind leaves to
a powder. A persistent trait of ceremonial Buddhist tea into Japan where powdered tea is
known as matcha and is at the center
of chanoyu.

In
discussing the philosophical differences of these various schools of Buddhism,
if there are really are any below the surface, one is tempted to draw an
analogy from the tea itself. The expression of this “truth” in a Buddhist
context is like the preparations of tea favored by the groups in question. The
Japanese and Chinese, like the zen
and ch’an doctrines, for the most
part like their tea quite simple and unadulterated. Contrast this to the
Tibetan obsession of adding rancid butter, milk, and salt to a tea that is churned
with rigorous energy, not unlike the prostrations of the devotees and lavish
embellishment/ritual of their Buddhism. (note on Tibetan dangers in tea). The
American tea sage David Lee Hoffman, who penetrated the Chinese wilderness in
search of the best teas, made it into Tibet
and personally sipped the high-grade teas with the Dalai Lama. He is one of the
subjects of the superb documentary All in
This Tea, where he informs us that the Lamas in the monasteries have the
finest, aged puerh teas for their own
spiritual use.

The
botanical side of the equation is equally interesting in this jungle of tea
creation myths and doctrinal schism within the broader Mahayana tradition. Like
Tantra, the precise geographical origins
of tea are unknown. Scholars have long debated the geographical location of the
mythical Oddiyanathat produced some of the most influential
Tantric adepts. Giuseppe Tucci’s speculation with the Swat
Valley was accepted for a time but
Oddiyana is now thought to encompass a wider range. The
Tantric Goddess worship of these regions of north-western/eastern India were
associated with specific locations or pithas
(literally “seats” of the goddess)which range from 4 to 110 (there are other variations)
depending on the system, are particularly linked to the north western region,
thought to be Odiyyana and the north-eastern region of Kamarupa or Assam. It is
also precisely this region that the first wild tea plants originated.

As Mondal
writes in the journal article Tea,"Camellia
sinensis originated in southeast Asia, specifically around the intersection
of latitude 29°N and longitude 98°E, the point of confluence of the lands of
northeast India, north Burma, southwest China and Tibet. The plant was
introduced to more than 52 countries, from this ‘centre of origin’." The
long asserted theory of a dual origin of the tea plant is proven false by
statistical cluster analysis studies “and all appear to demonstrate a single
place of origin for Camellia sinensis —
the area including the northern part of Burma
and Yunnan and Sichuan
provinces of China.”
Perhaps it was such wandering mystics, much earlier than Bodhidharma or the
even more colorful Tantric adepts, who deserve praise for the early diffusion
of tea throughout ancient China.
Whoever that nourished, cultivated and propagated tea and tea culture was
utterly successful and by the time of the first real tea monograph, in 760 AD, tea was
widespread. This was written by the patron saint of tea, Lu-yu who was born in
a Ch’an Buddhist temple and eventually retired from the world as a
scholar/recluse. There is a large void in much of the history of tea from the
legends attributed to the Emperor Shennong in 2737 BC (some versions say it was
an adviser, Tun Jan, to the legendary emperor Huangdi who recommended tea for
staying alert) despite some references to its medicinal use in the Han dynasty (206
BC–220 AD) and for pleasure or social occasions in the Tang (618–907 AD).

One early
document is the Manual of Zhou Dynasty
Rituals (Zhou li) thought to be written around the second century BC, which
attest to “religious rituals involving tea, of the preceding eastern Zhou
dynasty.”Again from the utterly elegant
and satisfying book Tea of the Sages,
“These three uses for tea in early China—as an herb that promotes health, as a
means to achieve heightened states of alertness, and as a beverage that, when ritually prepared, allowed communion
with divinities—suggest the reason for continued appeal in later ages in
both China and Japan” [emphasis added]. Tea’s constant domain within a sacred, often
ritual context must be always remembered and it is retained even in the more
secular literati circles that treated it as a near sacrament in their
microcosmic ways and arts.

If
later examples in tea culture can serve us in deciphering the past diffusion,
and by what groups, then there are telling references from which to draw. A
primary example of such a later example is found in the dissemination of
Buddhism, and tea, to Japan.
As Dennis Hirota writes in the monumental work, Wind in the Pines, “it was not until the Kamakura
period when Zen master Eisai (1141-1215) actively promoted the use of powdered
tea (matcha) for medicinal purposes
and as a stimulant during periods of meditation, that tea drinking began to
spread.” Eisai was not just a Zen master, but also the founder of the Rinzai
sect, and he is said to brought tea seeds and plants from China
in 1187 and cultivating them in his temple in northen Kyushu.
He is said to have shared them with his friend of the Kegon sect, priest Myoe
who planted them at his temple in Kyoto
and both no doubt created the atmosphere and tea the produced chanoyu. Note, though previously a brick
tea or “dancha” in jap, was introduced in Heian period (9th century).When contacts and influence with China diminished
tea culture in Japan declined as well though, as Tea of the Sages notes, it did not completely die out, but “was
preserved in Buddhist temples…and by the 12th century Buddhist
monastic rituals routinely included elaborate tea rituals of whipped tea.”
Eisai wrote of drinking tea, “not as a stimulant during meditation, but as an
esoteric ritual conducive to harmonious functioning of the bodily organs.”
These practices, which can be described almost as refined pujas, ritually offered tea to the Buddha (kucha) and, in Japan, offerings to Shinto deities as well (kencha).

Prior
to this was the Tantric adept Kukai, who brought a particular esoteric Buddhism
(Mikkyo) to Japan and founded the Shingon sect. One of the earliest, if not the
earliest, references to tea in Japan is found in the Kukai Hoken Hyo (Shoryoshu, volume
4) dated to 814 in the Heian period of Japan who traveled to Tang China in 804.
He returned with texts, mandalas, statues and, tea seeds. But even before this
was Saicho (767–822), who brought esoteric Buddhist teachings from China
with tea seeds and formed the Tendai sect. Some suggest that, due to close
relationships between Korean and Japanese Zen monks and the close relationship
between Korean and Chinese masters, that technical information on tea came via Korea.
Whatever the specific routes of transmission, the knowledge of tea and tea
itself was always in the province of Buddhists
who retained a ritual devotion to it even in sects that disdained ritual. Sen
Soshitsu, present leader of the Urasenke tea school of chanoyu in Japan, writes
concludes and earlier occurrence of tea in Japan Chakyo Shosetsu “In 729
Emperor Shomu called one hundred priests for a reading of the Hannya Sutra; on
the second day, tea was served” which again connects tea with Buddhist
liturgical ritual. More discussion on soma/amrita in Buddhism…

Korean
tea addicts I have corresponded with tell of a wild Korean tea that grows
between famous Buddhist temples and one can read of a “prehistoric” White
mountain tea, Baeksan Cha,
made from the leaves of a tree in the azalea family “in the highlands of Mount
Baekdu in TheKorean
Way of
Tea. This book also records an interesting legend brought to Korea
in the 2nd century of the Common Era that tea was introduced to Korea,
not from China
as might be expected, but way of India
in a gold and silver boat and a tea plant brought Princess Ayodhya. In Korea
she is known as Heo Hwang-ok, consort of King Suro, the first king of the
little kingdom of Garak-guk,
located in south-eastern Korean peninsula. Before marrying the king, she took
off her silk trousers and prayed to the mountain spirit. This King was mythically produced from strange
eggs or “balls in a golden box wrapped in red cloth descended from heaven to
the mountain peak."

Another legend,
found in The Korean Way of Tea, links
tea in Korea to the foundations of its earliest Buddhist temples, Bulgap-sa or Bulhui-sa, in 384 or to Hwaeom-sa
in 544. The curious and remarkably early legend of tea from India
is telling in the context of Buddhism as are the early dates for tea in Korean
Buddhist temples. Korean tea culture waxed and waned in popularity but, like Japan,
it was always maintained in the Buddhist temples and it is Buddhist monks, such
as Ch’o-ŭi, who are credited with the resurgence of popularity of tea and tea
cultivation in Korea
in 19th century. The first “tea ceremony” in Korea
is said to date from 661 AD which was conducted in praise of the spirit of King
Suro.

The vajra, held in the hands of Korean Buddhist master Cho ui and Japanese master Kukai, resembles stylized mushrooms conjoined by a ball. I have seen examples that seem to have "gills" as well as having the vulva on the stem.

Tea’s
special relationship with Buddhist and Daoist “ritual”, or combinations
thereof, and persistent associations with Indian mystics and religious
experience were instrumental in the spread of tea throughout ancient China,
Korea and Japan.
I humbly submit the suggestion that Bodhidharma, having been born of a culture
that enshrined an ancient plant as its highest mystery, came to China
looking for such an herb and, essentially, for a cup of tea. The continued, and
perhaps unsatisfactory substitutions for soma
or amrita as it was called in
esoteric Buddhist circles, might have compelled many mystics to reevaluate old
legends and to set off for the most magical plants. If Bodhidharma indeed
rediscovered tea’s mystical associations, than we can agree he succeeded in his
quest.

Shennong brewing tea.

The myths of China and India contain many examples of magical fruits and fungi. The "golden melon" or wu-lu gourd are potent symbols of longevity and magic as well as containing the elixir of life. Tea is often pressed into such shapes.